


Forget Me Not

by orphan_account



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-28
Updated: 2007-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 02:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan forgets about her. He forgets that he has a daughter. He forgets that her hair is blonde and her name is Claire and she wanted to meet him, once upon a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Me Not

Nathan arrives back into the city after a two day road trip from Texas (no need to have anybody looking up any plane tickets). He unlocks the doors and kisses his kids (his only kids) hello. Heidi greets him warmly, and he smiles at her and tells her all about his meeting with the lobbyists from Albany.

"They want to cut the health care budget in half to give more resources to the wildlife foundations," he calls back to her as he makes his way into their bedroom, infusing his voice with the right amount of humor and weariness.

"I hope you weren't rude to them," she sighs, wheeling in after him and opening his suitcase on the bed.

He comes out of their walk-in closet, his tie unknotted and his pressed (wrinkled) dress shirt halfway unbuttoned. "Of course not," he grins at her, leaning over her to press a kiss to her smiling mouth. "I need their votes."

Heidi laughs, pushing him away with one hand. "You're shameless."

"Sure, but you love me anyway," he teases, kicking off his shoes on his way to their bathroom.

Closing the door behind him, he allows the smile to fade from his face, leaving only shadows and pale skin under the harsh light of his wife's vanity. Shameless, he thinks, letting out a silent, mirthless laugh.

He washes his hands and brushes his teeth, avoiding his reflection the whole time.

\--//--

He gets a phone call the next morning. Peter's in jail. Again.

Nathan considers letting him sit there for a day, but Heidi glares at him and hands him his coat and he's out the door with his keys in hand and a tirade of angry words on his tongue.

But when Nathan arrives, Peter's covered in blood and barely talking. He manages a few words, broken and pained, and Nathan finds out that Simone's been shot - killed - and Isaac is being charged with manslaughter.

"The painter?" Nathan asks, shocked.

"It's all my fault," Peter says in a hollow voice, and suddenly Nathan's thinking about an exploding man and a New York City that isn't anything more than dust and fire.

He hopes the Japanese guys know what they're doing.

They drive home in silence and Nathan might accidentally (on purpose) forget to tell Peter that he has a niece.

\--//--

After the briefest of conversations with his mother (neither wants to talk about her any more than they need to), Nathan lets himself forget about her.

Mostly.

He just wishes he didn't know that her anger - the anger that came through so clearly, so resentfully in the one image he has of her - he wishes he didn't know that he's the one who gave it to her.

He wishes he didn't know her name.

\--//--

Peter gets a phone call from someone named Claude and he's gone the next day. Nathan lets him go because the election is a week away and, as always, nothing he says will change the mind of his little brother anyways.

He reads in the news that Isaac the painter got off on the manslaughter charges, and he's glad for him, because he's always seemed like a nice guy.

But the next day there's a much bigger article about the same Isaac the painter being found with his skull cut open and his brain missing. And Nathan can't stop thinking about where his brother might be.

\--//--

He wins the election. He stands up amid cheers and banners and balloons and thanks the public for giving him this chance, this wonderful chance, to serve them. And he says he wishes his brother could be here with him, to make this moment complete, and they cheer again.

And he lets himself think about her. And if she would make this moment complete, as well, standing next to her grandmother and brothers, her blue eyes laughing as she cheered for her father.

\--//--

Three weeks later, he finally hears from Peter. He's in Vegas, with the aforementioned Claude and Nathan's odd little Japanese friend. They've also met up with a family, and when Nathan hears that the father just got out of prison (escaped from prison) he closes his eyes and winces and warns his brother to not get caught, for the love of god.

Peter tells him to shut up, not to worry, and give his love to their mother.

Nathan hangs up and doesn't tell Angela anything.

\--//--

Almost two years pass and he's running for reelection. This time is easier (feels easier) because he's let himself forget about his skeletons.

Linderman is a thing of the past, killed in a particularly gruesome manner - sliced in half with his own rare Japanese sword - over a year ago. Nathan heard the news, thought of his acquaintance with the round face and the penchant for heroics, and then promptly forgets about him.

He and Peter talk regularly. They never mention flying. Nathan tells him about the family (Simon is almost in high school) and about the stresses of Congressional life. Peter lies to him about his job and they both pretend Nathan believes that the younger Petrelli brother is dealing blackjack at the MGM Grand.

Peter also tells him about a girl he's dating - sweet, beautiful, funny - and Nathan thinks about a bullet-ridden Simone and Isaac with his brain cut out of his skull.

The length between their phone calls grows until they're barely talking once a month.

\--//--

He wins reelection, and this time refuses to think about his daughter and where she should be standing (next to him).

Peter shows up the next day to congratulate him.

\--//--

"What the hell happened to your hair?"

Peter laughs. They're on the balcony, shivering in the cold fall night and drinking beers because neither one will admit they'd rather have a hot chocolate.

"I shaved it about six months ago."

Nathan eyes him critically. It's growing in now, but not much longer than his own. "Not a bad look."

"Thanks. My girlfriend threw a fit, but I needed to get rid of it."

Nathan doesn't care about the girlfriend (he does) so he skips to the second part. "Why?"

Peter shrugs. "A chunk got sheared off accidentally."

"Accidentally?"

"Hiro was practicing with his sword."

Nathan flashes on the photos he'd seen of Linderman - blood, everywhere, blood - and moves on. "You let him swing at you with a sword? A real one?"

His younger brother turns to look at him, a strange spark in his eyes. A smile finds its way to the edges of his lips. "It couldn't hurt me."

"It cut a man in half, Peter!" Nathan hisses angrily, forgetting that he's not supposed to know about any of this ridiculousness.

In response, Peter, smashes his empty bottle on the railing, crushing the shards in his hand. Nathan opens his mouth to shout for a towel (a tranquilizer) but the words die in his throat as he watches his brother's skin stitch itself back together.

"Holy - "

\--//--

Peter can fly now. Really fly, without Nathan to help. Peter can heal. Peter can stop time and phase through walls and become invisible in the blink of an eye.

He can also make people forget things. Nathan doesn't ask to see this particular trick, but he files it away under information that could be useful at a later point.

\--//--

Nathan forgets about her. He forgets that he has a daughter. He forgets that her hair is blonde and her name is Claire and she wanted to meet him, once upon a time.

He forgets about her.

Until the day she shows up at his house, nineteen years old and stunning, and holding the hand of her uncle who introduces her as his girlfriend, Claire.

\--//--

They met in Las Vegas, Peter tells the family over dinner. She and her roommate worked at the casino with him.

"You remember Claude, the friend I told you about?" he asks Heidi as she passes him the ham.

"The British one, right?" she asks.

"Yeah, well, apparently Claude and Claire's roommate used to know each other. They introduced us and we all became friends and..." he grins down at Claire, who smiles shyly up at him. "Well, one thing led to another."

Heidi laughs and says that they make a beautiful couple.

Nathan can't eat a bite.

\--//--

They met in Texas, Peter tells him later that night, out on the balcony.

"She was the cheerleader, Nathan," he whispers urgently. "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World, remember? It was her."

Nathan stares out into the darkness, broken up with the myriad lights from the city below him. He can't speak.

"Her friend, the Haitian, used to work for Claire's father, who was Claude's old partner. They...they worked for this company that researched mutated genomes. People like you and me," Peter presses on, ignoring the fact that Nathan is ignoring him.

"That's what we've been doing, Nate, these past years. Working with her father and his new partner...Matt, he's a cop who can read minds...we've been working on bringing down that company. From the inside."

Nathan shakes his head. "Shut up, Peter," he says harshly.

And Peter does. Nathan senses his momentary hesitation before turning to go inside.

He hears the door open, then a pause. "I think you'll really like her, Nathan. All of them. Once you get to know them."

Nathan stays where he is, rigid and silent, until he hears the door close behind his brother.

It rises up inside of him, and suddenly he's crouching down and taking off into the night, flying up and up until no one can hear him scream.


End file.
